Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

vampires toward an empty spot on the floor.
    “We were just deciding what to watch,” Margot said as she served up a slice of deep dish onto a paper plate and handed it over. “As social chair, I think you should get to pick which one.”
    Ethan had named me House social chair as a half joke and half punishment. He thought I needed to become better acquainted with my fellow vampires. It was undoubtedly a good call, although I hadn’t done much at all in the position. I’d thought about hosting a mixer for Navarre, Grey, and Cadogan vampires, but magical drama always seemed to get in the way.
    “What are our options?” I asked.
    Lindsey flipped through some movies. “Animated with a good moral. Three ladies being saucy about their jobs and boys. And, my personal favorite, poor kid proves she’s the best dancer at Dance-Off High and wins the lead role in a Broadway musical.” She slid me a glance. “The guys won’t appreciate this, but there is singing. Much singing, and you can make the lyrics scroll across the bottom of the screen.”
    She knew me as well as anyone. I loved to dance, and in high school I’d had plenty of ambition—but sadly, no talent—to become a musical theater songstress. Thank God I’d had good grades to fall back on.
    “I can’t possibly say no to sing-along lyrics,” I said, diving into the pizza. It was ridiculously good.
    I caught a pretty bad habit in graduate school of obsessing about my work to the point of ignoring anything and everything else. I rarely visited friends. I rarely did anything that wasn’t related to getting the job done. I became a hermit, not because I didn’t like people, but because I wasn’t very good at balancing work and play. “All work” was a lot easier to manage.
    Times like this made me remember that I could do both. I could be busy, productive even, while having a social life. While interacting with people. While being out in the world instead of sequestering myself away from it. Times like this I felt like a normal person, not just a solver of problems for a House of vampires.
    Friendship, I thought, quickly downing my wedge of pizza, wasn’t a burden. It was a gift. It allowed us to remember what all the fighting was about in the first place. Why we struggled to protect the House—and what we were protecting.
    So I sat back with Lindsey and the others, and I sang horribly to lyrics that were wincingly bad, and I remembered why we went to all the trouble of fighting in the first place.
    When the movie was over, I helped the crew clean up and was happy to take the last piece of pizza for myself back to my room.
    But when I made a move to leave, Lindsey stopped me.
    “Oh, no,” she said. “We have words for you.” She looked around the room. “All boys out of the room, please.”
    There were only a couple of male vampires left, but they shuffled out after whistles and catcalls about what they joked was going to take place with me, Margot, and Lindsey after they left.
    Lindsey closed the door behind them, then looked back at me.
    “Spill.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but Margot and Lindsey exchanged a glance that said they knew better.
    “You and Ethan should be doing the nasty with aplomb and frequency,” Lindsey said. “And instead, you’re barely talking to each other and you’re having me and Luc relay messages between you. If the sexual tension in this House gets any thicker, we’ll have to paddle through it. What the hell is going on?”
    I closed my eyes. Part of that was completely humiliating, and I really didn’t want to get into the rest of it.
    On the other hand, I needed help. And unlike a certain pretentious Master vampire, I knew when to ask for it.
    I sat down on the floor again. “He’s driving me crazy.”
    Lindsey and Margot joined me. “What happened?”
    “It started in Nebraska. We realized he and Mallory have some kind of connection because of the spell she tried to work. He’s not her familiar or anything, but if she gets emotionally freaked-out, he does, too.”
    “That’s scary,” Margot said.
    “It is,” I agreed. “But he can control it—he controlled it in Nebraska. Anyway, during one of these spells he grabbed my arm, and now he’s convinced he’s going to hurt me if we keep seeing each other while Mallory’s in his head. So we’re ‘halting’ our relationship.” Yes, I used air quotes.
    Lindsey gave me a flat stare. “He’s an